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EXIT Podcast Episode 26: The Soft-Skill EXIT (feat. David Moore)
464 Plays3 years ago
If you can learn to code, the path to EXIT is pretty straightforward: you're marketable wherever you go, and you can demonstrate your competence with a five minute review of your Github.
If you're a "people person", it's easy to feel locked into your corporate gig, because the value you've built is in your insights, your inside connections, the institutional respectability of your associations, and your credibility. Those assets can be difficult to take with you, or to demonstrate to a new audience.
David Moore leveraged a corporate operations internship into a sales job, then started a pharmaceutical sales business, then sold the business. Now he's effectively independent, and can play the long game on projects he cares about. I wanted to learn how he did it.
David coordinates the weekly EXIT entrepreneurship call. You can also schedule a 1:1 consultation with David here.
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Transcript
Introduction to David Moore's Journey
00:00:19
Speaker
This is Dr. Bennett.
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm joined here by David Moore.
00:00:21
Speaker
David's a member of Exit.
00:00:22
Speaker
He's built a successful pharmaceutical sales business, which he sold in 2017.
00:00:26
Speaker
He's a very active, ambitious guy, but right now he has the freedom to pour all that energy into things that he really cares about.
00:00:32
Speaker
Right now he's building a sales consultancy to help companies get more out of their sales force and their products.
00:00:38
Speaker
Exit is a little bit unique in that groups like this tend to draw really money-driven guys, but with us, it's really about getting money out of the way.
00:00:44
Speaker
So I wanted to talk to David about how he did it and what the rest of us can learn from it.
00:00:48
Speaker
So welcome to the show, David.
00:00:50
Speaker
Thank you, Bennett.
00:00:51
Speaker
Good to be here.
00:00:52
Speaker
Great to have
Entry into Pharmaceutical Sales
00:00:53
Speaker
you.
00:00:53
Speaker
So you're not a pharmacist.
00:00:56
Speaker
You don't have a healthcare science background.
00:00:59
Speaker
So how did you get in that room?
00:01:02
Speaker
I had a summer internship in my sophomore year at a healthcare company that when the summer internship came to a close, I was encouraged by my boss at the time to stick around throughout the fall semester and maybe consider going to night school.
00:01:19
Speaker
And I finished college and basically remained an intern, so to speak, at that company for the remainder of my college years.
00:01:27
Speaker
Was it a sales internship?
00:01:29
Speaker
No, it was an operations internship, but I was sort of an admin intern learning a lot of things.
00:01:34
Speaker
I got to do some training at that company.
00:01:37
Speaker
I got to do some travel even a little bit as a college kid, which feels really cool when you're telling your night school teacher that you have to be out of class for work.
00:01:46
Speaker
And you're still at the college age.
00:01:48
Speaker
So that was an exciting time for me.
00:01:50
Speaker
And so basically, to answer your question, I used my opportunity in my internship to make connections.
00:01:57
Speaker
And I was looking for jobs that would be relevant to my skill set after my college years were over.
00:02:03
Speaker
And I found a connection that got me into pharma-like sales, pharmacy sales, that was the space that I entered into.
00:02:11
Speaker
So I know a lot of guys that have marketing degrees.
00:02:13
Speaker
I have an econ degree, a lot of business.
00:02:17
Speaker
the consensus among guys with those degrees generally tends to be, boy, that was a waste of time and money.
Value of Internships and Networking
00:02:24
Speaker
That was, nobody cared.
00:02:27
Speaker
Particularly in my case, nobody cared that I had an undergraduate economics degree.
00:02:32
Speaker
Nobody wanted to hire me on that basis.
00:02:35
Speaker
But you made use of that experience in a different way.
00:02:40
Speaker
Tell us about how you leveraged that.
00:02:43
Speaker
Well, I certainly think it's important that I saw the value of extending that summer internship.
00:02:49
Speaker
I realized that being an intern and being in a corporate environment for that period of my life was as equal, or if not more valuable than the education I was getting at night.
00:03:00
Speaker
So I approached both the day and the night with the similar eye to who are the people that will be helping me with the next step of my career.
00:03:09
Speaker
And so certainly the content of a marketing degree probably provided me with simply ambition.
00:03:17
Speaker
You read about these case studies and it gets you excited.
00:03:20
Speaker
And for me, a lot of times information is energy.
00:03:23
Speaker
And so I looked at the educational part as, you know, you needing to punch a ticket perhaps for some of the organizations that I'd be working for in the future.
00:03:32
Speaker
But I looked at the environment around me for the real value, the people, the people value.
00:03:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's such an interesting point.
00:03:39
Speaker
Information is energy.
00:03:41
Speaker
The stuff that I valued from my MBA was definitely not like I know how to do valuation or I know how to build this or that spreadsheet, which is most of what the technical content is.
00:03:54
Speaker
The stuff that I valued was these exciting stories and these aspirational, these dreams that they give you to dream.
00:04:02
Speaker
So I really admire that you leveraged it that way because I so wish that I had done that.
00:04:06
Speaker
I so wish that I had spent the time getting pumped, dreaming big, making these connections.
00:04:11
Speaker
And that, I think, is totally your vibe now.
00:04:13
Speaker
Like that's the energy that you throw off in every conversation.
Understanding Pharmaceutical Sales Industry
00:04:19
Speaker
So the impression that I get culturally from the pharma sales game,
00:04:25
Speaker
is that it's sort of a way to cash in if you're handsome.
00:04:27
Speaker
Like the pharma sales is about kind of being a booth babe and schmoozing and boozing with fancy people and looking fancy and dressing fancy.
00:04:38
Speaker
To what extent is that perception accurate?
00:04:40
Speaker
Well, there's certainly room for everyone, but yeah, there's a lot of, there are certainly aesthetics, aesthetics matter everywhere, but I can definitely say that what I really saw is a very large and
00:04:53
Speaker
varied industry where you have people that are, there's a lot of work being done in the healthcare world and, you know, nurses and doctors and the whole healthcare holistic process is just very labor intensive.
00:05:07
Speaker
And so the way that I think the most powerful and durable,
00:05:12
Speaker
salespeople made it in that industry was to really be just this endless source of value, whether that was you were kind of taking on like a social work vibe at times, you were taking on consultative vibe, you were doing
00:05:27
Speaker
basically had your sleeves rolled up and the powers that be, the people that sort of make decisions in the healthcare world really respected the grittier, heartier types of sales reps that were out there.
00:05:41
Speaker
There wasn't a lot of
00:05:43
Speaker
Certainly there's a need for, you know, attractive people at a booth or attractive people popping into an office, but that world of aesthetics only, I think only goes so far, right?
00:05:53
Speaker
And so you have to really think about what is your value to the process as it's happening.
00:05:59
Speaker
And I think the people that did best at that really found their place in that process.
00:06:03
Speaker
So let me ask you this to make it more concrete.
Sales Skills and Client Integration
00:06:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:06
Speaker
If you were advising someone to jump into that game,
00:06:11
Speaker
is it worth it to drop a couple of Gs on a style consultant or an image consultant?
00:06:14
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:15
Speaker
I mean, I think the answer is yes.
00:06:17
Speaker
All right.
00:06:18
Speaker
That's a yes.
00:06:19
Speaker
I mean, I think that's the right place to hire somebody like Tanner to up your style game is certainly smart.
00:06:25
Speaker
So, well, that's interesting about being gritty and like rolling up your sleeves.
00:06:30
Speaker
Because I think a lot of people, when they picture sales, they're just picturing like, I'm going to show up, I'm going to deliver a pitch and then I'm out.
00:06:37
Speaker
But you're talking about integrating yourself into the productive process for these clients.
00:06:45
Speaker
To the extent that you can.
00:06:47
Speaker
And I think in sales in general, one of the great disservices that you can hear when you're young is to see some really handsome sales guy or gal that just seems to have a genetic impact.
00:07:01
Speaker
predisposition for sales.
00:07:03
Speaker
And that is really, that's really a disservice to see that because I think the more you embed yourself and find yourself in the world of sales, you see that there are a lot of people that are involved in helping organizations make decisions and helping individuals make decisions.
00:07:19
Speaker
And a lot of times the less sexy side of sales involves a lot of people that aren't Ken and Barbie.
00:07:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:07:27
Speaker
They're really people that are helping with the completion of a sales cycle or the support of an ongoing enterprise or the support of an ongoing client relationship.
00:07:37
Speaker
And that is not something that I think a lot of people see.
00:07:42
Speaker
I also, I was really benefited when someone said sales is a skill and not something you're born with.
00:07:48
Speaker
And the sooner you can kind of
00:07:50
Speaker
embed that into your psyche, the more likely you are to think of sales as a very valuable process.
00:07:56
Speaker
And there's a lot of literature out there that you can get into that honors sales as more of a career and a craft and a trade that is learnable, valuable, and certainly appreciated by the client, the company you work for, all the parties involved.
Understanding Client Needs in Sales
00:08:14
Speaker
So you mentioned being a value to the client.
00:08:16
Speaker
And I think that's really interesting.
00:08:19
Speaker
How would that generalize?
00:08:20
Speaker
If you were coming in cold to a new industry, a new environment, how would you start?
00:08:26
Speaker
You know, I think one of the best pieces of advice I was given by a sales manager years ago was to sit down and think about your client as an individual and how they interact with your product, your process.
00:08:40
Speaker
And you may even have specific clients by name, you know, depending on the industry you're in and actually think about how are they going to use my service or how are they going to use my product?
00:08:50
Speaker
And how can I be, how can I make the entire experience change?
00:08:54
Speaker
of what they, of their interaction with me pleasant.
00:08:57
Speaker
And that can be even being just a resource in general.
00:09:00
Speaker
You know, I've made selections of, I've made sales choices in my life based on who are the most resourceful people in my life.
00:09:09
Speaker
And
00:09:09
Speaker
I want to go use the service that they're offering because they are just a service in general.
00:09:15
Speaker
And so if I purchase their financial services, I get access to them.
00:09:19
Speaker
And so access to the individual, I think is always a great way to think of how you present yourself as a salesperson.
00:09:27
Speaker
I think just in general, as a business person, you want to be someone for whom people are asking questions, advice, recommendations.
00:09:37
Speaker
Think of yourself as the concierge of your network, even the secretary of your network.
00:09:43
Speaker
Be the one that remembers the details.
00:09:45
Speaker
Be the one that remembers the agreements and the things that we're committed to.
00:09:49
Speaker
And that is really an area of attention to detail that I think people appreciate.
00:09:54
Speaker
Now, and I don't want to get into the Jungian thing, but attention to detail is not a strength.
00:10:04
Speaker
How did you develop that into a strength for you?
00:10:07
Speaker
So for me, it's attention to the person and it's attention to the conversation.
00:10:14
Speaker
And so if I can notice things that people say or impressions that they make or reactions to how something is presented, I can remember that as a detail.
00:10:24
Speaker
you know, ENFP for me, I know it is also for you.
00:10:28
Speaker
I can pay attention to impressions.
00:10:30
Speaker
I can pay attention to the aspects of people's personality for which I know that I can suggest things or recommend the right people to better serve them.
00:10:42
Speaker
Oftentimes in sales, I would discover that I was not the most compatible person with one individual or another, but I knew that there would be people
00:10:52
Speaker
And if I sensed that, if I felt that, I could bring someone else in who can make a stronger connection.
00:10:58
Speaker
And so really as salespeople, it's seeing what's happening.
00:11:02
Speaker
You know, again, we're getting in the Yoongian stuff.
00:11:04
Speaker
So I know that it's a little bit of a skill set for us to sense and feel people.
00:11:08
Speaker
But there are other ways in which your specific gifts show up in how you evaluate a sales opportunity.
00:11:15
Speaker
It's so dramatic, the difference when you frame it that way in terms of what am I thinking about?
00:11:20
Speaker
Because like, if I'm thinking about my job in terms of my to-do list and like dotting the I's and crossing the T's, that's really challenging for me.
00:11:30
Speaker
But if it's keeping in my mind the needs of a bunch of people, I actually have appetite for that.
00:11:37
Speaker
Like I can totally do that.
00:11:39
Speaker
And so, you know, that probably would have served me better to have figured that out in my quanti desk job.
00:11:44
Speaker
Although, you know, it's for the best.
00:11:47
Speaker
But yeah, and I wanted to talk to you about that a little bit.
00:11:49
Speaker
Like being in that, you know, I'll slop the pigs, I'll clean the stables, I'll do the grunt work to become valuable, to become a node in the system that people rely upon.
00:11:59
Speaker
That's something that you'll hear in every MBA course on the planet.
00:12:06
Speaker
for a while, but I found the work so desperately, horribly boring that it was just hard to hang on while I waited to become useful.
00:12:16
Speaker
So how do you find the motivation to do that grunt work that makes you valuable to the team?
00:12:21
Speaker
Well, I think it's realizing that at the end of the day, we're part of the human experience.
00:12:27
Speaker
And so we want to not be too far above anything.
00:12:30
Speaker
And certainly as salespeople, salespeople already kind of come prejudged oftentimes with having this agenda of one thing and one thing only.
00:12:40
Speaker
And certainly, I mean, yeah, it's okay to have an agenda.
00:12:43
Speaker
It's to do your job, but also to...
00:12:46
Speaker
It's endearing to be of service.
00:12:49
Speaker
And we appreciate people who are of service.
00:12:53
Speaker
And it comes naturally to who we are.
00:12:55
Speaker
And so a lot of salespeople that I think do very well touch into the aspects of their humanity.
00:13:03
Speaker
that come naturally and, or maybe that they've even, you know, they allow some of their, their, you know, kind of the, the more human sides of them to flourish in a sales role, which can be one way in sales is a, can be a very rewarding career as you get to bring, you know, some jobs don't allow you to be as lovey-dovey and as caring and noticing as you need to, maybe you would want to be.
00:13:28
Speaker
And maybe that's part of the solution is you should be in an environment where you're able to do things you care about.
00:13:33
Speaker
I mean, a lot of what it was for me is like, I just don't value this.
00:13:37
Speaker
I don't want that guy's job.
00:13:38
Speaker
I don't believe in what we're doing for people.
00:13:41
Speaker
So like the idea of furthering this kind of sucks and like isn't particularly motivating.
00:13:46
Speaker
But you know, if you're helping...
00:13:49
Speaker
sick people get better.
00:13:50
Speaker
And I know there's like a financial component to that that
Sales and Coaching Parallels
00:13:53
Speaker
complicates it a little bit.
00:13:54
Speaker
But at least in theory, the thing you're doing is of real value.
00:13:58
Speaker
It's not of negative value.
00:14:00
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:14:01
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:14:02
Speaker
And I think of adjacent careers as I'm doing the work that I'm doing.
00:14:07
Speaker
So I've always loved coaching.
00:14:09
Speaker
I've loved podcasts.
00:14:11
Speaker
I've loved books.
00:14:12
Speaker
I've loved seminars.
00:14:13
Speaker
And so sometimes it's fun to sort of imagine yourself being
00:14:17
Speaker
doing something adjacent as you're conducting your work.
00:14:20
Speaker
So for example, talking to a sales team, I might tap into the material that I've read, or I might embody some of the concepts that I've seen on stage as far as how to use coaching as a tool for communicating with the client, right?
00:14:37
Speaker
Is this a conversation about selling or is this a conversation about goals and ambitions and desired outcomes?
00:14:44
Speaker
Sales allows you to...
00:14:46
Speaker
pull from a wider range of soft careers that can all come in handy.
00:14:51
Speaker
So, you know, for me, it was about reading about psychology, reading about coaching, friendships, storytelling, all the things that make you an interesting person and make you understand humans in general and sort of what makes them tick, make you more pleasant to be around and more conversational and more interested in others.
00:15:12
Speaker
The coaching angle to sales is so interesting because to me, what I am offering to people is work.
00:15:20
Speaker
Like I'm saying, I'll help you to build something.
00:15:24
Speaker
And so that conversation has to start with like,
00:15:27
Speaker
Do you have something you want to build?
00:15:30
Speaker
Do you feel like you have the will to accomplish that?
00:15:32
Speaker
And if you don't, why not?
00:15:34
Speaker
Like, what's in the way?
00:15:35
Speaker
What's holding you back?
00:15:37
Speaker
How can I help you talk through that?
00:15:39
Speaker
And because I really believe in this group and what you guys are able to do together, the difficulty is not like, does this offering have value?
00:15:48
Speaker
Getting over the hump is usually about like, is this person in a state where they're ready to jump in and make use of it?
00:15:56
Speaker
Because if you're not ready, then it's just, you know, you're just throwing the money away.
00:16:01
Speaker
But yeah, the value proposition is very much about your personal state of readiness.
00:16:07
Speaker
And I think there's a lot of sales that's like that where, you know, if you're selling gym memberships or you're selling business services.
00:16:15
Speaker
So just last night we were talking to somebody who was hiring on sales reps.
00:16:20
Speaker
And that implies some ambition and some optimism about, will I be able to put these guys to work?
00:16:27
Speaker
Will I be able to accomplish that?
00:16:29
Speaker
And so like selling in a lot of ways is coaching the customer to like, yes, I'm ready to, I'm ready to leverage this to make my life better.
00:16:40
Speaker
Right.
00:16:40
Speaker
And therefore so much more so is it required to really believe in what it is you sell.
00:16:46
Speaker
And so it's, it's, you know, sales, sales as a craft is, is important to learn.
00:16:53
Speaker
yet it's also important to be behind something you really believe in.
00:16:56
Speaker
And that can be a little bit of trial and error.
00:17:00
Speaker
I mean, I certainly understand people that have kind of wanted to just learn sales for sales sake.
00:17:05
Speaker
And sales is a lot like, it's a big word like sports or entrepreneurship.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, can mean a lot of things.
00:17:12
Speaker
Can mean a lot of things.
00:17:13
Speaker
And so if you want to be in that more consultative coaching type sale, there's going to be a series of,
00:17:18
Speaker
of experiences that you'll probably need to go through to determine where that right fit is for you.
00:17:24
Speaker
How much client interaction, how much learning about the client, how much quarterbacking and secretarial work do you want to be involved with to be in sales?
00:17:34
Speaker
And I've had friends in
00:17:36
Speaker
you know, software sales, like it's a very large level.
00:17:38
Speaker
And that's, that's a whole nother game, right?
00:17:40
Speaker
Where you're, you're dealing with large organizations and it's slow and it's, and it's, it's not the same as maybe, you know, selling a gym member, or it's certainly not the same as selling a gym membership, but ultimately there's a, there's an attention to detail and a caring about the goals of people.
00:17:55
Speaker
Yeah, and that, I mean, in a lot of cases, those kind of sales reps, they're earning their recurring because they're helping to maintain, they're helping to troubleshoot, they're educating you on how to integrate the software into your existing system.
00:18:10
Speaker
There's very much an ongoing relationship that you're building.
00:18:14
Speaker
It's not just about the pitch.
00:18:16
Speaker
And so, yeah.
00:18:17
Speaker
Well, that leads into something that I want to discuss.
Importance of Soft Skills in Sales
00:18:20
Speaker
Guys like us, I think, often suffer from imposter syndrome because the thing that we have to offer is not a hard skill.
00:18:28
Speaker
We're not going to dig into your computer and make it run better.
00:18:32
Speaker
We're not going to write the code.
00:18:34
Speaker
We don't have the invention to sell that we invented.
00:18:37
Speaker
But I know from talking to you, you've got guys kicking down your door to bring you into their projects.
00:18:45
Speaker
So you have something rare that
00:18:47
Speaker
and valuable to bring to the table.
00:18:49
Speaker
What do you think that is?
00:18:51
Speaker
Well, thanks for saying that.
00:18:53
Speaker
I appreciate it.
00:18:55
Speaker
I feel, you know, it's one of those things that those of us with soft skills have to make peace with that are more ruddy, durable, hard skill brethren build a lot of the world we live in.
00:19:07
Speaker
And we're very grateful to them for their skill set.
00:19:11
Speaker
And certainly the variation that exists amongst all of us is a great thing.
00:19:17
Speaker
But in accepting the softer skills gift, I think it's a little bit of understanding that one of the things that I get a lot is,
00:19:28
Speaker
you know, I mean, we didn't really know that you were essential, but now that you're here, we really don't want you to leave.
00:19:33
Speaker
And can you come back?
00:19:34
Speaker
And we want that again.
00:19:35
Speaker
And we want that experience of you again.
00:19:38
Speaker
And there's something you add to this, to this, that's maybe not as easy to, to articulate, I think sometimes with the soft skill people, but we can, but we certainly can do so.
00:19:48
Speaker
And I think, you know, I've worked with Scott to determine that, you know, one of the aspects of what I,
00:19:54
Speaker
add to a business conversation can be likened to like a fertilizer that you put on crops.
00:19:59
Speaker
It's something that you don't need it until you've seen your neighbor get it.
00:20:03
Speaker
And then you're like, oh, what are you using there?
00:20:06
Speaker
Oh, all right.
00:20:07
Speaker
Well, David Moore's got something that must be valuable because it certainly seems to make a difference.
00:20:12
Speaker
And I experienced it once myself and I like it.
00:20:14
Speaker
We had this conversation about value proposition in our entrepreneurship call last night and how you and I both have this situation where we have anecdotes.
00:20:24
Speaker
We have stories about, you know, I brought a guy in and then I did something.
00:20:30
Speaker
And then on the other end of it, we had success.
00:20:33
Speaker
It went really well.
00:20:34
Speaker
And like, if I take the time, I can break down like, well, I
00:20:38
Speaker
we had this really valuable conversation where we broke down like some psychological barriers.
00:20:45
Speaker
And then,
00:20:46
Speaker
I connected him with people who also helped him break down some barriers that I wasn't able to break down because I'm a different guy with a different experience.
00:20:54
Speaker
These people were more like him and they were able to like jack in to stuff I couldn't jack into.
00:20:59
Speaker
And then we got him referred to people who had experience in the thing that he was trying to do.
00:21:03
Speaker
And so that helped him to be less afraid.
00:21:06
Speaker
And so it's not like I taught him Python and he got a Python job.
00:21:11
Speaker
Some of that is like directly like, you know, we connect people to people who know Python.
00:21:16
Speaker
But in a lot of these cases, we have guys who already can do...
00:21:23
Speaker
the thing and it's like they got to let go of the feather and they know they can still fly.
00:21:28
Speaker
And that's like, maybe that trivializes it, but it's definitely about these conversations, right?
00:21:34
Speaker
Certainly.
00:21:34
Speaker
And I think there's something to, you know, the value of a storyteller or the value of seeing our contribution through past stories is
00:21:46
Speaker
I think one of the things that I've noticed I've been able to do is when I find someone who is doing, going about their daily work, I can often add meaning to what they do by talking about what I see it is that they're doing.
00:22:01
Speaker
I see that you're doing this and I see that you're doing that.
00:22:04
Speaker
And they go, yeah, wow, I really am.
00:22:06
Speaker
I really am doing that.
00:22:07
Speaker
Thank you for saying that.
00:22:08
Speaker
And it's energy.
00:22:09
Speaker
You know, energy is one of these things.
00:22:10
Speaker
I mean, it's it runs the world, but we we discount it.
00:22:12
Speaker
Right.
00:22:13
Speaker
But but certainly energy makes a difference.
00:22:16
Speaker
And obviously, with what we talk about, it's more than energy, but it's also that.
00:22:20
Speaker
And I think one of the one of the things that we can.
00:22:27
Speaker
approach with our soft skills way of being is where in the story did my value click in?
00:22:34
Speaker
Let me reverse engineer what happened there and pluck out my contribution.
00:22:40
Speaker
And that's what we do for other people as well.
00:22:41
Speaker
I mean, it starts with me reverse engineering my own value proposition, but it's just like what you're talking about.
00:22:48
Speaker
You watch what somebody's doing and you say, this is the value.
00:22:51
Speaker
This is what you're providing.
00:22:52
Speaker
And in a lot of cases,
00:22:54
Speaker
In a lot of cases, it's hard for all kinds of people to answer those questions.
00:22:59
Speaker
What's my value?
00:22:59
Speaker
What does this mean?
00:23:00
Speaker
And potentially they may be providing value in the wrong place or in the wrong way that it's not being rewarded, it's not being valued.
00:23:10
Speaker
And so you can potentially redirect.
00:23:12
Speaker
I guess what I'm addressing is I think that attacking questions of meaning has professional consequences.
00:23:20
Speaker
it has brass tacks ROI consequences and helping people to address that is valuable.
Role of Advisors and Soft Skills in Tech
00:23:29
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:23:29
Speaker
Our friend Scott's comment of business being personal adjacent, you know, and I've talked in our group about the value of paid conversations.
00:23:38
Speaker
You know, I've always enjoyed hiring coaches and the types of experts that can give me feedback about myself.
00:23:45
Speaker
And so that's one way that someone with soft skills can
00:23:48
Speaker
can really conduct discovery through conversation.
00:23:52
Speaker
And so, one of many ways to get to improve in a sales role or to improve as a soft skills person is to have a board of advisors, not necessarily officially, but in your mind of people that you go to refine your thinking and to help you see sometimes what you can't see.
00:24:12
Speaker
And we see so much concrete value
00:24:17
Speaker
And we, you know, we're certainly in a world right now where in the tech space, right, the developers and a lot of the individuals are having a moment of real, the world is calling on them, that they are in high demand.
00:24:33
Speaker
And so some of us in the softer skills feel a little bit adrift.
00:24:38
Speaker
And I think that that's where we can, it's through conversations that I think we really address a lot of our needs and also meet the needs of others.
00:24:47
Speaker
Yeah, and it's not automatable or it's very challenging to automate.
00:24:49
Speaker
And so there's a sense in which it's a really strong exit opportunity because it's hard to take from you.
00:24:58
Speaker
It's hard to scale those conversations and that sense of meaning.
00:25:02
Speaker
Yeah, it really is.
00:25:03
Speaker
I mean, I think if you think about, you know, one of the last the last automatable things for AI to take will be will be the great stories, storytellers and the great meaning makers and the the imagination.
00:25:18
Speaker
You look at the content coming out of Netflix that's algorithmically generated and like
00:25:24
Speaker
Even with them also paying really, really expensive writers, it's so bad.
00:25:30
Speaker
It is like there's no soul to it.
00:25:33
Speaker
There's no magic to it.
00:25:35
Speaker
And so, yeah, I totally like I am not an AI maximalist.
00:25:41
Speaker
I think that there are problems it can solve and there are problems that it's never going to solve.
00:25:46
Speaker
And one of those is poetry and beauty and meaning and connection between human beings.
00:25:52
Speaker
it's an important role to play.
00:25:55
Speaker
And I think the challenge for a person in that position who has this sort of gift for strategy and coaching and connection is just, if you're a programmer, you can send somebody to your GitHub.
00:26:11
Speaker
And if your program runs and does what it's supposed to do and looks like it's supposed to look, they know that you're competent.
00:26:18
Speaker
They know that you can do it.
00:26:20
Speaker
And so the challenge for guys like us is to build credibility because the thing that we do is hard to quantify and hard to articulate.
00:26:29
Speaker
Yeah, it really is an experiential, you have to experience us and that can be a challenge.
00:26:36
Speaker
And again, we can work with others to help us articulate it.
00:26:40
Speaker
And there's certainly the copywriters of the world and the people that can really draw out our value for others.
00:26:45
Speaker
And we can do that ourselves, but there is a, we have to oftentimes embed ourselves into teams.
00:26:52
Speaker
I'm great in a classroom and I've also noticed that,
00:26:57
Speaker
I'm really great with deep friendship conversations and connecting.
00:27:02
Speaker
And, but, you know, again, these are all things that are kind of done through iteration.
00:27:05
Speaker
And so the work of the soft skill craftsman still exists and it's, it's the work of iteration, another conversation, another conversation, and then doing the, you know, doing the physical and the technical components that, that are within your grasp, but then your reach certainly, but there may be a lot of discovery,
00:27:24
Speaker
is part of our work.
00:27:25
Speaker
And again, if somebody's got to be out there sweating and slinging the hammer, then we've got to be putting in our reps as well.
00:27:32
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:27:33
Speaker
And I think the tech sales, the growth of tech sales, and I think this also applies to medical technology.
Skill Disparity in Tech Solutions
00:27:40
Speaker
The fact that there is so much money accruing to these technical solutions that are so scalable provides an opportunity for
00:27:49
Speaker
people with these soft skills.
00:27:51
Speaker
Because I don't think there's been a time in history where there's been such a mismatch between the skills required to create the solution.
00:28:00
Speaker
and the skills required to sell the solution.
00:28:03
Speaker
Because the type of guy that can build that is not the type of guy that can sell it almost all the time.
00:28:10
Speaker
There are exceptions, there are anomalies, very gifted prodigies who are also really socially adept, but by and large, they need help.
00:28:19
Speaker
They need help to build the message and convey it.
00:28:22
Speaker
So yeah, it's a huge opportunity space.
00:28:26
Speaker
So to somebody who's in this situation, maybe they're in a dead-end job.
00:28:31
Speaker
They know they've got this capacity and this temperament that's good, but it's just not being exploited or rewarded by their employer.
00:28:41
Speaker
So say you're talking to me three years ago.
00:28:43
Speaker
Sure.
00:28:44
Speaker
I'm a finance guy, and I hate my industry, and I'm not looking for self-help to be a better finance guy and to work that network.
00:28:53
Speaker
I want out.
00:28:54
Speaker
I want to go be a sales rep.
00:28:55
Speaker
Where do I start?
00:28:56
Speaker
Well, I think it starts with listing out who is in your world, who is in your, who, if you think of your network as clients and who do I know, what value can I provide them?
00:29:11
Speaker
Think of this as like an action plan based on your network.
00:29:15
Speaker
I think Keith Ferrazzi was one that made it called it the network action plan.
00:29:18
Speaker
You write out who you, you write out who you know,
00:29:22
Speaker
You write out what value you can provide them.
00:29:24
Speaker
You write out who they know and what opportunities they could connect you to.
00:29:30
Speaker
Basically create almost like a reciprocity momentum.
00:29:34
Speaker
You want to be, again, depending on what stage you're at, you may just have friends who will help you and guide you.
00:29:40
Speaker
But assuming that you haven't really developed this side of your career and this side of your skill set, I think it's about getting a conversation going.
00:29:52
Speaker
Thinking of your network as clients, thinking of each individual as a resource to a next conversation.
00:30:02
Speaker
I like the phrase that I've heard, everything I want is in the next conversation.
00:30:07
Speaker
And it's not necessarily true, but it's certainly a way of being that you need to be talking your way to what you want.
00:30:18
Speaker
And you and I have talked about Stone Soup, the children's book where the soldiers walk into a town and
00:30:25
Speaker
Everyone's claiming that they don't have any ingredients to make food, right?
00:30:29
Speaker
And so these guys get a conversation going.
00:30:32
Speaker
They start talking about what would be great to have, and then an ingredient appears.
00:30:36
Speaker
And they continue to sort of speak this soup into existence by drawing out all the available resources.
00:30:43
Speaker
Much in the way that a salesperson can pitch a product or a service is a future salesperson can pitch a reality that they're seeing.
00:30:51
Speaker
and a vision.
00:30:52
Speaker
And as people start to see that reality and vision, they go, you know, I might have something that could add to that.
00:30:57
Speaker
I might have someone that I could give you a piece of information about.
00:31:01
Speaker
And so you talk your way into your future reality, but you certainly don't just talk.
00:31:07
Speaker
You're also serving, you're thanking, you're showing gratitude, you're paying it forward, you're paying it back.
00:31:14
Speaker
You're doing all the socially, you're doing all the right things to do.
00:31:19
Speaker
But you're keeping your eye on a future and you're helping people see that
Networking as a Strategic Tool
00:31:25
Speaker
come to be.
00:31:25
Speaker
And that was certainly, you know, for me getting into sales, it was talking about my skills.
00:31:31
Speaker
It was being a certain way that people could imagine me in a future role.
00:31:38
Speaker
And I think that's the other thing that, you know, the way you're being in your current day-to-day, I think has a lot of impact on how people can imagine you further.
00:31:48
Speaker
Yeah, and so maybe you need to break out of, if you're not able, like if you're trying to project that kind of energy in your environment and you find that it's really, I mean, I'm talking about me.
00:32:00
Speaker
Sure.
00:32:01
Speaker
And you find that it's really challenging to do that.
00:32:03
Speaker
You may need to get out of that environment and find a place where you're better
00:32:09
Speaker
That was Twitter for me.
00:32:11
Speaker
That was all of my energy, all of my vitality, all of my juice I was throwing out there instead of in my workplace, which was, in hindsight, the right move.
00:32:20
Speaker
There was nothing for me to gain from that workplace.
00:32:26
Speaker
And you were iterating, right?
00:32:27
Speaker
You were communicating and you were finding and refining your voice and being seen as a resource, being seen as an intellect that was valued.
00:32:39
Speaker
That was how I knew that I needed to keep doing it was people would reach out to me every like month and a half or so.
00:32:43
Speaker
And they would say, oh, this changed my relationship with my wife or this, you know, I'm going to go homeschool my kids or whatever it was.
00:32:51
Speaker
That happened all the time.
00:32:52
Speaker
And I was like, wow, okay, there's something really here.
00:32:54
Speaker
This is something I need to do.
00:32:56
Speaker
And that definitely was my approach with starting Exit.
00:32:59
Speaker
It was very clearly, I recognized a need in my network.
00:33:03
Speaker
I said, there was an element of that that was serendipity, but I was also thinking about it for a long time.
00:33:09
Speaker
I was thinking about people are finding value here.
00:33:13
Speaker
How do I make it so that I can do what I care about doing instead of doing this dead-end job just so I can pay the bills while my mind is in this other space?
00:33:24
Speaker
Yeah, I feel it's almost as if we catch wind and our kite gets going and we're like, wow, how can I keep chasing good sources of continual wind and let this thing stay above the right altitude?
00:33:40
Speaker
And certainly I've experienced that as well.
00:33:43
Speaker
I've enjoyed the variety of people in exit group.
00:33:48
Speaker
And I think that for me, it's about, I love a life of variety.
00:33:53
Speaker
I love a life of unique conversations.
00:33:57
Speaker
And so one of the reasons that I'm drawn to this group is a desire to keep that wind of a free life.
00:34:07
Speaker
And so one of the ways to do that for me is to live outside of a corporate entity.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:13
Speaker
So that was going to be my next question is, why did you sign up for exit?
00:34:18
Speaker
Was that the goal in the beginning?
00:34:21
Speaker
The beginning, yeah, so it's changed because the value has come more clear to me as I've joined.
00:34:27
Speaker
But the beginning, it was really enjoying the freedom of kind of an early exit or not a permanent exit, but a
00:34:40
Speaker
I did sell a company, you know, in 2017, and I had some freedom that came from that.
00:34:45
Speaker
Not lifelong retirement freedom, but some freedom.
00:34:47
Speaker
And I wanted to be able to maintain a lifestyle where I could sit down and talk to anybody I wanted to be able to talk to on any issue.
00:35:00
Speaker
Either side, I want to be free in my association.
00:35:03
Speaker
It's really important to me.
00:35:04
Speaker
And so that the freedom of speech, freedom of association, I have, I place a very high value on that.
00:35:11
Speaker
And right now we're living in a time where challenging to be free in who you choose to sit with.
00:35:18
Speaker
And I have a rule that I get to sit with anybody I want on any topic and we can even take a picture.
00:35:24
Speaker
And that's fine, you know?
00:35:27
Speaker
Well, I think the value proposition for our intellectual software developer type guys is very much, I want to think my own thoughts.
00:35:40
Speaker
I want to be free to think and say what I think.
00:35:44
Speaker
And no one should be able to punish me for what I think, what I believe.
00:35:48
Speaker
And it's interesting the way that you framed it was, I want to be in the room with whoever I want to be with.
00:35:54
Speaker
And I don't want to be punished for my connections, which it just, it just grounds it in like who we are and where we come from.
00:36:02
Speaker
Because that's my, that's my, the same thing for me is like, who are you to tell me who I'm allowed to talk to?
00:36:08
Speaker
Like, it's this thing with Joe Rogan that's going on right now.
00:36:11
Speaker
It's like Joe Rogan, you know, I guess, I guess he took ivermectin or whatever.
00:36:15
Speaker
And like, that's, that's his big sin.
00:36:18
Speaker
But the real sin is that he's in the room with people he's not supposed to be in the room with.
00:36:23
Speaker
And that's a capital offense for these people.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, and so for me, exit is a way to maintain that upward momentum that keeps us free, freely speaking, freely associating.
00:36:38
Speaker
So you're on a timetable.
00:36:39
Speaker
You're on a deadline, which is, you know, you have a certain amount of time in which to build your next opportunity.
00:36:47
Speaker
And you could right now,
00:36:51
Speaker
Jump right back into corporate sales.
00:36:54
Speaker
But you don't want to do that.
00:36:56
Speaker
So we are building something else.
00:36:58
Speaker
So tell me about this sales consultancy and what your business model is, how you're planning to deliver
Holistic Sales Consultancy Approach
00:37:08
Speaker
it.
00:37:08
Speaker
I've always had the idea in my mind that I wanted to do one-on-one consulting and coaching.
00:37:14
Speaker
And so one of the ways I can do that is I can do that with the coaching of salespeople and people who want to increase the amount of sales that they make within their organization.
00:37:24
Speaker
And that can be a venture that is a one-man venture, or it can be larger.
00:37:27
Speaker
It can be a small business, medium-sized business, whatever it might be.
00:37:31
Speaker
I am looking to interact with individuals and groups that
00:37:36
Speaker
that want to increase the yield and the revenue of their organization and their idea.
00:37:42
Speaker
The way that I approach
00:37:45
Speaker
increasing revenue is looking at what is it that you're offering now in your organization?
00:37:51
Speaker
What is it that you could be offering?
00:37:53
Speaker
I really take sort of a more holistic business development approach to sales.
00:38:00
Speaker
I'm not opposed to adding my two cents when it comes to things I think that your organization should be selling in addition to what you're trying to sell.
00:38:09
Speaker
I think a lot of the revenue that gets left on the table
00:38:12
Speaker
for organizations is in things that they don't quite see that the customer would like to pay for, that the customer would, you know, sometimes I've certainly experienced it where I'll go to a, I'll interact with someone or an organization or a venture or a website where I'll say, wow, I actually would have spent more money here, but they just don't seem to be taking any more from me.
00:38:33
Speaker
That's all they've got to give me here.
00:38:34
Speaker
I think having felt that and having seen examples throughout my, you know, conversations with entrepreneurs over the years,
00:38:42
Speaker
of where they discovered things that they could be adding to their product offerings or their service offerings has really excited me about sales consulting.
00:38:54
Speaker
Certainly there's lots of things that you can do with salespeople to increase the way that they sell.
00:39:01
Speaker
But I think the piece that's more exciting for business owners is increasing the predictability of the sale.
00:39:08
Speaker
Could it be a subscription?
00:39:09
Speaker
Could it be a longer term commitment?
00:39:12
Speaker
Is there something that you're offering your client
00:39:15
Speaker
as they approach the alumni status of your current offering?
00:39:20
Speaker
What is the lesser way that a full-blown client could interact with you or less than a full-blown client could interact?
00:39:26
Speaker
Do you have a medium and a small and does it come in different colors and does it have varieties?
00:39:32
Speaker
So really looking at almost kind of the merchandising aspect of your business as well as how do we display more varieties and allow people to experience you and your offering
00:39:45
Speaker
Which what's interesting about that to me is that it's about knowing your customer.
00:39:50
Speaker
It's about psychology.
00:39:52
Speaker
What are they really here to get?
00:39:54
Speaker
And what kind of person are they?
00:39:55
Speaker
And what else might they be interested in?
00:39:57
Speaker
And this is another angle where somebody like you, and this is a sense in which you and I, I think, are different, actually, is that you can go too far in this direction.
00:40:05
Speaker
But I think one of the things that makes certain types of small businesses really successful is frugality.
00:40:12
Speaker
and is being careful with your money and conservative.
00:40:15
Speaker
And it's challenging for a person who is like that temperamentally to get themselves in the mind of a customer who would like to spend.
Impact of Spending Mindset on Business
00:40:25
Speaker
And so they're thinking like, I got to cut costs because this person is going to spend what they're like, what they're going to spend is fixed.
00:40:34
Speaker
And I want more profit, so I need to cut costs.
00:40:36
Speaker
Or I need to pare this thing down, pare it back so that I'm taking in more.
00:40:43
Speaker
And your mindset is, no, no, let's look at how you can be the emporium for all kinds of value and open up new things.
00:40:54
Speaker
And so that's an element of mindset that you bring.
00:40:57
Speaker
Right.
00:40:57
Speaker
I think, you know, I think obviously the benefits of frugality are awesome.
00:41:03
Speaker
I think one of the things that you can benefit from seeing a spending culture, if you have a frugal nature, to be around a spender for a day, right?
00:41:14
Speaker
A real big spender for a day.
00:41:16
Speaker
And see all of the enormous expenses that go, or big and small expenses that go into the
00:41:25
Speaker
the creation of his or her world.
00:41:28
Speaker
And, you know, I've been amazed when I've been with friends and seen the things that they, that they value and that they're willing to spend money on.
00:41:36
Speaker
And it gets my mind excited.
00:41:38
Speaker
And I think, you know, I almost feel like one, one version of a textbook could be credit card statements of the rich and famous, right?
00:41:49
Speaker
Where, where, where does, where is some of the low hanging fruit for which you could be, um,
00:41:55
Speaker
And certainly the people that have worked in the arts and in luxury goods have explored that domain, right?
00:42:03
Speaker
Things that seem so expensive.
00:42:07
Speaker
And then a lot of the luxury services that you see that exist, people's pets and all that.
00:42:13
Speaker
It's not necessarily that you want to be in that space, but you can learn a lot from how
00:42:19
Speaker
people view their money in different domains.
00:42:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:22
Speaker
And I think we if you're used to the domain of scarcity,
00:42:27
Speaker
Of scarcity, sure.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:29
Speaker
And seeing, you know, one of the things that we've talked about is like paid conversations, right?
00:42:33
Speaker
If you, if you want to, I was exposed to coaching really early on, but when I got the idea that you could pay to talk to someone, man, my mind went wild.
00:42:43
Speaker
I thought everybody should have some, you know, everybody should have some business card in which they have some topic in which they should, you know, be billing for their conversation.
00:42:52
Speaker
And, you know, that's my, that's my merchant brain going wild there.
00:42:55
Speaker
But
00:42:57
Speaker
I got a little cousin who sells pest control and he's been just crazy successful.
00:43:02
Speaker
One of the things that he did, he says, I'm going to buy a Tesla.
00:43:06
Speaker
And I was like, well, I mean, that's a lot of money.
00:43:10
Speaker
Like, I mean, I know you're doing really well, but like, do you need a Tesla?
00:43:13
Speaker
Like, what's that about?
00:43:14
Speaker
And he's like, well...
00:43:15
Speaker
if the sexiness of the Tesla brings me on two new sales guys to my team, then it's paid for itself.
00:43:21
Speaker
And I was like, that is such an alien mindset.
00:43:25
Speaker
That is bananas to me.
00:43:26
Speaker
Like on the one hand, like I'm like, I can't, I can't dispute it.
00:43:32
Speaker
Like, like if that works, then yeah, I guess.
00:43:35
Speaker
But like, it's such a, it's such a mind blow to me that there are people operating on that level.
00:43:40
Speaker
I think it also comes from the, you know, spending is,
00:43:45
Speaker
Spending can give you energy.
00:43:47
Speaker
And again, you want to be careful with any of these frames, right?
00:43:50
Speaker
But spending, there is no, yeah, sure.
00:43:57
Speaker
But there is something that comes from, you know, we get energy from our clothing, we get energy from our cars, we get energy from our aesthetic.
00:44:07
Speaker
And so paying attention to those things that put you in a mood to
00:44:11
Speaker
do your work better, certainly has a monetizable effect.
00:44:15
Speaker
And so I think that people who've paid attention to how environments make them feel or how the cleanliness of their home makes them feel can certainly relate to how physical items can
Entrepreneurial Mindset and Growth
00:44:29
Speaker
be a source of energy.
00:44:30
Speaker
And that's another piece of, I think that you...
00:44:34
Speaker
Again, that's a piece of the shadow for you and I, is the physical environment.
00:44:40
Speaker
How do we dial that in?
00:44:41
Speaker
How do we make that right?
00:44:42
Speaker
Because we're inclined to be in abstract land and sort of neglecting the physical.
00:44:49
Speaker
And so a little bit of attention to that from guys like us goes a long way.
00:44:54
Speaker
My wardrobe.
00:44:56
Speaker
I updated my wardrobe a little bit recently, and it feels different.
00:45:02
Speaker
a webcam on the podcast for a while.
00:45:05
Speaker
And so I was doing stuff in my pajamas and not really caring about my appearance.
00:45:12
Speaker
And I didn't feel that the quality dipped.
00:45:14
Speaker
But then when I got the webcam and I was like, all right, I need to shower.
00:45:17
Speaker
I need to put a shirt on.
00:45:17
Speaker
I need to clean up my situation.
00:45:20
Speaker
I was way more dialed in.
00:45:21
Speaker
I was way more conscious of who I was and what I was there to accomplish.
00:45:26
Speaker
And it was a really positive thing.
00:45:28
Speaker
So yeah, I think...
00:45:29
Speaker
There's a sense in which I think men in particular, and Tanner rails against this all the time, Tanner Guzzi, rails against this idea of it doesn't matter what I wear, it doesn't matter how I look, real men don't care how they look.
00:45:42
Speaker
And there's a critique that that's responding to, right?
00:45:46
Speaker
Which is you don't want to be image-obsessed.
00:45:52
Speaker
You don't want to be an empty suit.
00:45:56
Speaker
But...
00:45:58
Speaker
There's a balance to be struck there, caring about that.
00:46:00
Speaker
Like what people think of you does in fact matter.
00:46:03
Speaker
How they see you does in fact matter.
00:46:05
Speaker
What you physically project is just as much a piece of your communication as the things that you say.
00:46:11
Speaker
And if you make that communication careless, then you are communicating carelessly.
00:46:16
Speaker
And you're kind of responsible for what shakes out from that.
00:46:20
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:46:20
Speaker
I think, you know, especially for those of us who tend to be to live in our to like to live in our minds or to like to live in our projects, and we see a diminished value on the physical, you know, I think it's about, again, going back to recalling stories.
00:46:38
Speaker
Can you recall a time when you did feel really nice?
00:46:40
Speaker
And it did feel it did give you energy and it did.
00:46:43
Speaker
And it's like, yeah, man, I remember how I remember how wearing a suit made me feel that day.
00:46:47
Speaker
And I remember how I was treated differently.
00:46:50
Speaker
And then as you relate it to sort of your economic life, it's like, well, could you see how, back to your nephew, how a Tesla could change the way I approach my sales calls.
00:47:00
Speaker
And certainly I also, I love how there's kind of this ethos in sales of more sales will solve all the problems.
00:47:09
Speaker
So he certainly applied that to his Tesla.
00:47:14
Speaker
He's like, I'll sell my way out.
00:47:16
Speaker
I'll figure this out.
00:47:19
Speaker
Well, and I mean, I think so.
00:47:20
Speaker
So if you've spent any time around like Provo bros in Utah, around BYU and BYU, Idaho, the summer sales guy who has a Tesla has a very different pitch when he's saying, hey, guys, do you want to go knock doors in Alabama in 100 degree heat all summer long?
00:47:39
Speaker
Here's the Tesla.
00:47:41
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:47:42
Speaker
Like, like it, it, it, it's not just like, it's not just a mindset thing.
00:47:47
Speaker
It's part of his pitch.
00:47:50
Speaker
And, and so, and I think, I think, I think there's an aspiration, you know, I think we want to be.
00:47:57
Speaker
a little bit aspirational in all things to some degree.
00:48:01
Speaker
Right.
00:48:02
Speaker
I think a full, and I think, you know, Tanner Tanner's work especially has been great about, you know, not being image obsessed, but being image cognizant for sure.
00:48:13
Speaker
And image intentional.
00:48:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:14
Speaker
And to the extent that I've had to rely on others to help me with that or to, to bring in, you know, like for me, I,
00:48:24
Speaker
I have a cleaning person.
00:48:25
Speaker
I don't like to clean.
00:48:26
Speaker
I didn't like it as a kid, but I noticed that in my early career that I could, that was one thing that really impacted my mood really nicely was a clean house.
00:48:37
Speaker
And I felt that I would sell my way, make a few sales to pay for it.
00:48:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think entrepreneurship in general changes your attitude toward money because it is so dependent on... I mean, I got a raise once a year for six years.
00:48:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:57
Speaker
And it was usually... Unless I was getting defensively promoted because I presented an offer, it was a couple thousand bucks a year.
00:49:06
Speaker
It was typical.
00:49:08
Speaker
And my income now...
00:49:11
Speaker
If somebody cancels on me or somebody signs up, that's basically that raise.
00:49:16
Speaker
And it happens a couple times a week or that demotion.
00:49:21
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:49:22
Speaker
And so getting used to the idea of your income as something that you can directly influence is very scary and it's very powerful.
00:49:33
Speaker
Yeah, it is very scary.
00:49:34
Speaker
And that probably addresses an area of the sales mindset that has to be harnessed.
00:49:40
Speaker
And I know that there's plenty of Tony Robbins in managing your state and those types of guys out there that really help to teach you to have the stomach for variable income.
00:49:54
Speaker
And that is a different thing.
00:49:56
Speaker
The beauty of it is that when it rains, you store the water.
00:50:00
Speaker
Right.
00:50:03
Speaker
And then, you know, and then, and likewise in low times, but I think, I think there's something sort of primal that you can tap into from, you know, let me go out there and make weather.
00:50:16
Speaker
Let me go out there and affect, use my million dollar mouthpiece, you know, my mouth and my, my, my way of speaking and my, in my service to others as a, as, as its own tool.
00:50:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:29
Speaker
I think, I think you, it,
00:50:32
Speaker
It feels weird to liken this to farming, but there's an acknowledgement when it's all on you.
00:50:45
Speaker
There's kind of an acknowledgement of providence.
00:50:47
Speaker
There's an acknowledgement that you're not in control.
00:50:51
Speaker
There's pieces of it that you can control.
00:50:53
Speaker
You can do your best, but if God doesn't make it rain, it doesn't rain.
00:50:59
Speaker
Nothing grows.
00:51:00
Speaker
and you can till and hoe and weed all you want.
00:51:04
Speaker
It doesn't make any difference.
00:51:06
Speaker
And, and, um, and I think, I think that has really changed things around for me because I've watched as my prayerfulness and my mindfulness towards spiritual things has, has been like heightened on a day-to-day basis because I'm like, heavenly father, I need help.
00:51:28
Speaker
This, I,
00:51:31
Speaker
it is not guaranteed that everything works out here.
00:51:39
Speaker
Obviously, that's true of a wage job too, but it's so much easier to coast.
00:51:44
Speaker
It's so much easier to just cash the check.
00:51:48
Speaker
If you've got a problem, it's going to creep up on you for months, and then it's going to explode.
00:51:52
Speaker
You're going to get fired.
00:51:55
Speaker
But in this situation, you're daily confronting your own accountability for what happens.
00:52:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think there is certainly a real sense being outside of a large organization, right?
00:52:11
Speaker
Being more...
00:52:13
Speaker
on your own and in control of that, that providing for your family is a beautiful thing.
00:52:21
Speaker
But it's certainly you feel you feel the exposure to the elements much more.
00:52:26
Speaker
And that the spiritual element of that is is essential.
00:52:29
Speaker
I think it's it's one of the ways that
00:52:32
Speaker
You can make peace with your inabilities.
00:52:36
Speaker
You make peace with your insecurities and your failings, but also feel the confidence of your ability to grow and improve.
00:52:46
Speaker
And I think also the family element of it too changes the math because if you're single and you're in sales or you're an entrepreneur, then you
00:53:00
Speaker
The worst that can happen really is embarrassment.
00:53:02
Speaker
You can be embarrassed.
00:53:04
Speaker
You can have to go to potentially the government for some to eat.
00:53:11
Speaker
But you're going to have – and it gets more dramatic.
00:53:15
Speaker
And also, you're more in charge of your spending.
00:53:17
Speaker
Because if you need to tighten the belt, you can always tighten the belt tighter.
00:53:21
Speaker
You can take it down low.
00:53:23
Speaker
Take it down way low.
00:53:25
Speaker
And I mean, that's, I tell guys this all the time.
00:53:27
Speaker
I don't want to be back single in my twenties, but I do have all kinds of thoughts about how I would have used that time better.
00:53:35
Speaker
And one of the advantages that it has is that you can take big risks.
00:53:41
Speaker
You can, you can jump feet first into things.
00:53:43
Speaker
And like, what's like that, that it kills me when I talk, when I hear, you know, single guys in their early twenties be like afraid.
00:53:52
Speaker
Because like, bro, nobody's going to be hungry.
00:53:56
Speaker
You're not going to get divorced.
00:53:57
Speaker
You're not like, this is it.
00:54:01
Speaker
What's the worst that can happen?
00:54:03
Speaker
What's the worst that can happen, man?
00:54:06
Speaker
And there's such a freedom to that.
00:54:08
Speaker
And so, yeah, I definitely, I think sales is a cool space for guys at that stage to operate in.
00:54:15
Speaker
Because it's so, it's all upside.
00:54:17
Speaker
It is.
00:54:17
Speaker
And it's essential to it.
00:54:19
Speaker
If you think about it from an organizational understanding, a lot of the CEO is often considered the ultimate salesperson.
Sales Experience for Entrepreneurship
00:54:27
Speaker
And if you're thinking about having your own business, your own venture,
00:54:34
Speaker
to be able to relate to the salesperson, to be able to have walked a mile in his shoes is really a great way to, it's almost like it's one of many, but it's certainly a seedling of entrepreneurship.
00:54:50
Speaker
You start to see how
00:54:53
Speaker
You're as close as you can be to the incoming oxygen of the lungs of the organization.
00:55:00
Speaker
And that awareness of the vital opening is so important.
00:55:08
Speaker
And I think that a lot of people that I know that have become entrepreneurial
00:55:13
Speaker
were born out of sales and really just saw sales as a way to parlay into, you know, maybe, maybe attach that to a technical person or attach that to a clinical person or attach that to a trades person.
00:55:28
Speaker
I mean, that was, that was your journey into entrepreneurship basically.
00:55:31
Speaker
And I see this a lot with exit guys is they'll say, I'm doing this job.
00:55:39
Speaker
that I know has value independent of the organization.
00:55:45
Speaker
Like I know that I could break off this piece and just do it.
00:55:50
Speaker
And I'm not dependent on the bigger organization for the value that I deliver.
00:55:56
Speaker
And basically they're extracting a lot of my value.
00:56:02
Speaker
And so I think especially for BD guys, you know,
00:56:09
Speaker
used of being like the lungs being close to the, the air, because, because in, in the corporate context, that was exactly the image in my mind.
00:56:19
Speaker
I was in this like airless dungeon.
00:56:23
Speaker
I was so far from the vitality, whatever vitality exists in the defense industry.
00:56:29
Speaker
And, um, yeah, yeah.
00:56:32
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's, that's totally true because I was in these classified spaces and there was no windows and it was like concrete walls.
00:56:39
Speaker
And I'm like three floors down and like 2,000 feet in and like just buried alive.
00:56:47
Speaker
And I would go talk to the BD guys, the business development guys, sales guys.
00:56:55
Speaker
And they had such cool stories.
00:56:57
Speaker
I mean, they're flying overseas.
00:56:59
Speaker
They're selling F-16s.
00:57:00
Speaker
They're like...
00:57:02
Speaker
making tons of money.
00:57:03
Speaker
It's rad.
00:57:04
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, how do I do that?
00:57:06
Speaker
And I got a bunch of, I got snowed by him for a long time.
00:57:11
Speaker
And then eventually somebody is like, well, that guy's a Harvard guy.
00:57:15
Speaker
That guy's a Yale guy.
00:57:17
Speaker
That guy was a colonel.
00:57:18
Speaker
And so he had a book of business that he brought to the table.
00:57:21
Speaker
Like, that's how you do it.
00:57:23
Speaker
That's not you.
00:57:23
Speaker
Sorry.
00:57:26
Speaker
Would you be interested in more finance?
00:57:30
Speaker
And I was like, no.
00:57:32
Speaker
No, I wouldn't.
00:57:33
Speaker
And so, yeah, being close to the lungs of the organization, I think, is huge.
00:57:37
Speaker
And it does.
00:57:40
Speaker
It's probably in the corporate context the closest you can get to the vibe of entrepreneurship.
00:57:44
Speaker
And maybe it's good.
00:57:47
Speaker
Maybe it's good training wheels because you generally start with a salary.
00:57:50
Speaker
It's low, but there's a salary.
00:57:53
Speaker
And you get to kind of see if you're if you're good at it and you're building that network.
00:57:57
Speaker
Because like a lot of guys, you know, I
00:58:00
Speaker
I could not have done what I'm doing now three years ago, maybe even two years ago, because I hadn't built the community.
00:58:08
Speaker
I hadn't built the network.
00:58:09
Speaker
It didn't exist.
00:58:11
Speaker
It's interesting though, that you are, you crave that business development life and you didn't find it in that organization, but you found another vessel to, for which to be the business development person.
00:58:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:27
Speaker
And it's, I often find that the, the,
00:58:30
Speaker
the role you're craving in one organization, you, you, you almost, it expung, it expels you out of its mouth.
00:58:39
Speaker
Right.
00:58:40
Speaker
And then you, you go find it in the other, in another vessel.
00:58:44
Speaker
Yeah, I was, I was expelled.
00:58:45
Speaker
Spewed.
00:58:47
Speaker
Spewed out.
00:58:49
Speaker
So,
00:58:55
Speaker
You're a guy at this point who can do pretty much what he wants to do, at least for a good long while.
00:59:02
Speaker
And you have time to figure this out.
00:59:05
Speaker
So I got a relative who, he's a software developer, and he would basically take a remote job for six months, which was enough for him to earn his living for 18 months.
00:59:21
Speaker
And then he would kind of just go surfing in Bali and live on the beach and goof around.
00:59:26
Speaker
And then when he ran out of money, he'd go get another software job.
00:59:30
Speaker
And that story, I cannot tell you how compelling that was to me.
00:59:36
Speaker
Because it was a dream of entrepreneurship that was not about... So my little cousin who's got the Tesla, that's not me.
00:59:45
Speaker
He and I are very different.
00:59:47
Speaker
I just don't, I wouldn't enjoy it projecting that.
00:59:51
Speaker
I get why he likes it, but projecting that into the world is not, it would feel insincere.
00:59:56
Speaker
It's not me, but the idea of making enough money to do what I feel like, man, that's really compelling.
01:00:07
Speaker
That's really exciting to me.
01:00:08
Speaker
And that's, uh, you know, so we talk, we talk about Scott, um,
01:00:12
Speaker
Scott's a similar guy.
01:00:13
Speaker
He didn't have a lot of appetites.
01:00:15
Speaker
He just wants to read books about Jung and help people with Jung and think about Jung a lot.
01:00:22
Speaker
And how he makes money is almost irrelevant to him.
01:00:25
Speaker
And so it's like he just wants to build a business that covers that for him.
01:00:29
Speaker
And so for you, what's the end game?
01:00:31
Speaker
What gives you meaning?
01:00:34
Speaker
Well, I've certainly learned that prolonged periods of rest aren't the young man's game, you know, and I'm not young, young, but I'm young enough.
01:00:43
Speaker
And I feel that, you know, being involved in with people and being useful is really important to my mind and my soul.
01:00:54
Speaker
And I feel that, you know, so for me, my end game is very similar.
01:01:00
Speaker
You know, I've been attracted to phrases, you know,
01:01:04
Speaker
and people, you know, I'm attracted to the work of like Charlie Munger and some of his writing about, you know, he likes to read sometimes all day and he's worth a fraction of what Warren Buffett is worth.
01:01:18
Speaker
And I think, you know, the legends kind of go that he sometimes takes like 1% of Warren's position on things and, you know,
01:01:25
Speaker
That's the corporate lore anyway.
01:01:27
Speaker
I don't know.
01:01:28
Speaker
That's what I've heard.
01:01:29
Speaker
But it's one of these things where I like to wear, for the most part, my natural expression all day.
01:01:36
Speaker
You know, I don't want to have to be, I don't like things that buzz me in and out of buildings on my belt.
01:01:41
Speaker
I don't like having to, for too long, have to be engaged in
01:01:47
Speaker
unnatural obligations or conversations.
01:01:50
Speaker
I like a natural life.
01:01:52
Speaker
And so for me, I've always been attracted to the stories of seasons of life, of the episode of hard work and then retreat.
01:02:02
Speaker
Movement is very important to me.
01:02:04
Speaker
I often travel when I'm stuck on an idea.
01:02:07
Speaker
I'll go out of town and have dinner with a family member, or I will
01:02:11
Speaker
you know, switch, switch Starbucks's during the middle of the day.
01:02:15
Speaker
If one's not giving me the right energy.
01:02:19
Speaker
So I have a, I have a move.
01:02:21
Speaker
I have a movement tax.
01:02:23
Speaker
That's a little bit that some guys don't have, you know, but other than that, you know, really my, my primary goal is, is to be, is to be useful, to be considered, you know, someone that you'd want to be in a valuable conversation.
01:02:38
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:38
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:39
Speaker
And one of the things that I think about this sales consultancy idea, and this is what appealed to me about the idea of management consulting when I was in my MBA, is I hated having to sit with an organization that was dysfunctional and just deal with its dysfunctions in a way that was not going to be solvable.
01:03:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:04
Speaker
And by me, anyway.
01:03:06
Speaker
One of the things that I loved about conversations and management consulting was they parachute you in, you give them your wise counsel, and then they get to decide if they want to use it or not.
01:03:21
Speaker
And it doesn't matter because you're gone.
01:03:22
Speaker
Like, like you, you can touch all sorts of different things and you can help
01:03:29
Speaker
And like you get to constantly explore new pathways and prospect and find gold always everywhere versus getting stuck into a routine.
01:03:41
Speaker
And I think that's super important for especially guys like us to be attacking new problems.
01:03:47
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:03:48
Speaker
And I think the other thing that's exciting from a expansion mindset is that teaching and solving problems has a
01:04:00
Speaker
It has high leverage opportunities, right?
01:04:04
Speaker
So we're having a conversation right now that can be played infinitely.
01:04:10
Speaker
And that's an exciting thing in the mind of the soft skill thinker, I think.
01:04:17
Speaker
Who knows who will hear it?
01:04:18
Speaker
There's a way to, what's that?
01:04:20
Speaker
I said, who knows who will hear it?
01:04:22
Speaker
Who knows who will hear it and who knows what impact it might have and into what further conversations and opportunities that might lead me, kind of setting off this little message in a bottle, but an infinite bottle.
Exit as a Creative Space
01:04:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:37
Speaker
So how is Exit helping you build what you want?
01:04:40
Speaker
So Exit for me, you know, it has become this laboratory to really access the beginner's mind.
01:04:49
Speaker
And so what I mean by that is, you know, last night I had an opportunity to present some copy that I'd written to the group and got some great feedback.
01:04:59
Speaker
And it's certainly not something that you would want to present or that I would typically want to present to just the general public or even to a friend who's kind of like, hey, what are you doing there?
01:05:11
Speaker
That's not your usual thing, right?
01:05:13
Speaker
That's a little out there for you.
01:05:15
Speaker
But I think for a lot of us who are looking to try something new and try something different and maybe...
01:05:23
Speaker
maybe just get the momentum going.
01:05:26
Speaker
I feel like we're in a group where it's, it's really guys are doing that.
01:05:30
Speaker
You know, you're in a supportive environment.
01:05:32
Speaker
I think someone said on one of the calls that, you know, I want to explore this idea, but I'm not so sure where it's going to go.
01:05:38
Speaker
It's like, perfect.
01:05:40
Speaker
That's it.
01:05:41
Speaker
Well, that's exact.
01:05:41
Speaker
You are in the right place to talk like that.
01:05:44
Speaker
Um,
01:05:45
Speaker
Because we're all looking at various phases of what we want to do.
01:05:49
Speaker
And so, you know, for me, I, I, I've even hopped on some of the calls where I, or I hopped on a call where I wasn't really a great, the content call, content creator call.
01:06:01
Speaker
I'm not a content creator, but I, I have some ideas.
01:06:04
Speaker
And so I was able to, to dabble in that, you know, on a, on a, and it's pretty rare that you get an opportunity to
01:06:12
Speaker
you know, on a random Saturday to just jump in on a call with guys that are creating and developing things out there and put your toe in.
01:06:21
Speaker
That is, that's a unique space.
01:06:23
Speaker
And so I've really tried to avail myself of the rooms that we're in.
01:06:26
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, so for the listeners, David runs our entrepreneurship call.
01:06:32
Speaker
And he's this incredible source of new ideas and new perspective and new energy.
01:06:39
Speaker
So the way the call works is we have five minutes where you tell us about what you're doing and maybe a problem statement.
01:06:45
Speaker
And then there's five minutes of questions and we dig into your idea and help you think of, you know, what's the next step for the next week?
01:06:54
Speaker
And
01:06:55
Speaker
David is that guy who's in the room taking the notes, providing the feedback.
01:07:01
Speaker
He's going to be on somebody's shortlist when they have the venture that they want to sell.
01:07:08
Speaker
And so it's an incredible incubator, I think, for that kind of idea and for those relationships.
01:07:16
Speaker
And so as people provide value to each other,
01:07:22
Speaker
this trust and this collaboration develops.
01:07:24
Speaker
And that's what's really fun for me to watch is like, I've watched people come in with really cool, really interesting ideas that are like transmogrified by these calls into something totally different and to me, more exciting and more interesting because they get sort of bombarded from all sides by all these different
01:07:48
Speaker
people with different angles on it.
01:07:50
Speaker
And, and the alchemy is super cool to witness.
01:07:54
Speaker
And David, you're, you're a big part of that.
01:07:56
Speaker
So I really appreciate you being willing to do this podcast.
01:08:00
Speaker
I really appreciate everything that you're doing in the group.
01:08:02
Speaker
And thanks for being on the show, man.
01:08:04
Speaker
Well, Hey, thanks Bennett.
01:08:05
Speaker
Appreciate it.
01:08:05
Speaker
If you want to learn more about David's sales consultancy, you can check him out at a Calendly link that I'm going to post in the podcast description.
01:08:12
Speaker
If you want to learn more about what we're doing at Exit, the accountability groups, and the creative alchemy that we're generating there, you can check us out at exitgroup.us.
01:08:18
Speaker
You can follow us on Twitter at exit underscore work.